01 Apr Is Cuba the Next Business Opportunity?

I’m attending a fascinating conference today sponsored by my alma mater, the Wharton School, and chaired by a good friend, on business opportunities in Cuba. This follows President Obama’s December 2014 announcement to begin normalizing relations with Cuba, improve travel and commerce opportunities and remove them from the list of state sponsors of terrorism (the conference rumor is that may happen officially as soon as next week). While some Cuban-American refugees have opposed this action, many believe the 50+ year old trade embargo was unsuccessful and that, in the end, we might get more with honey than with vinegar in dealing with the Castro regime. Congress would still have to reverse the embargo, but the President has taken the first steps to improve relations.

What do they need in Cuba? It seems like pretty much everything. Internet access, more modern telecommunications, private ownership of businesses, improved banking, including allowing US credit cards, more hotels and the like. But there’s more infrastructure there than some believe. Several million foreign visitors hit the Cuban beaches every year, just not from the US (half come from Canada). What is currently already allowed are educational missions, including some who are teaching Cubans about entrepreneurship and business opportunities, which is cool. The first in might be the cruise lines, which effectively bring their own hotel, food and the like as long as there are buses to transport people to Cuba’s famous sites and shoreline.

Most believe that the Cuban people like and respect the American people. We have managed, with occasional strain, to have ongoing relations with Russia, China and others with dramatically different political systems and the potential to be future wartime enemies. And the Castros do not seem to have suffered under the embargo, in fact many say it allowed them to blame all their troubles on the Americans. At this conference, the belief of many attendees is that opening trade and travel could help the Cuban people as well as create exciting opportunities for entrepreneurs throughout the world to do business there. What do you think?